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This book is dedicated to my late mother and father, Charlotte and Clifton Thomson, wonderful parents who devoted much of theirlives to public service, and to my late great aunt, Florence Stanton Thomson, whose generosity enabled the writer to undertake the research, writing, and publishing of this book.It is also dedicated to my husband, Jan, and two sons, Robert andSamuel, whose tolerance of Mom’s activism and frequent absences from home over a period of thirty years allowed the writer to pursue her search for the truth. Jan’s gourmet cooking lifted ourspirits and kept us all from starving! Without the men’s patience,humor, and moral support, this book could not have been written. v

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IN MEMORIAM This book is a small tribute to the late Honorable John M. Ashbrook, 17th Congressional District of Ohio, whose work in Congress during the1960s and 1970s exposed the treasonous plans which ultimately led to theinternationalization and deliberate dumbing down of American education. vii

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FOREWORD Charlotte Iserbyt is to be greatly commended for having put together the most formidableand practical compilation of documentation describing the “deliberate dumbing down” ofAmerican children by their education system. Anyone interested in the truth will be shockedby the way American social engineers have systematically gone about destroying the intellectof millions of American children for the purpose of leading the American people into a socialistworld government controlled by behavioral and social scientists. Mrs. Iserbyt has also documented the gradual transformation of our once academicallysuccessful education system into one devoted to training children to become complianthuman resources to be used by government and industry for their own purposes. This is howfascist-socialist societies train their children to become servants of their government masters.The successful implementation of this new philosophy of education will spell the end of theAmerican dream of individual freedom and opportunity. The government will plan your lifefor you, and unless you comply with government restrictions and regulations your ability topursue a career of your own choice will be severely limited. What is so mind boggling is that all of this is being financed by the American peoplethemselves through their own taxes. In other words, the American people are underwritingthe destruction of their own freedom and way of life by lavishly financing through federalgrants the very social scientists who are undermining our national sovereignty and preparingour children to become the dumbed-down vassals of the new world order. It reminds one ofhow the Nazis charged their victims train fare to their own doom. One of the interesting insights revealed by these documents is how the social engineersuse a deliberately created education “crisis” to move their agenda forward by offering radicalreforms that are sold to the public as fixing the crisis—which they never do. The new reformssimply set the stage for the next crisis, which provides the pretext for the next move forward.This is the dialectical process at work, a process our behavioral engineers have learned to xi

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Foreworduse very effectively. Its success depends on the ability of the “change agents” to continuallydeceive the public which tends to believe anything the experts tell them. And so, our children continue to be at risk in America’s schools. They are at riskacademically because of such programs as whole language, mastery learning, directinstruction, Skinnerian operant conditioning, all of which have created huge learningproblems that inevitably lead to what is commonly known as Attention Deficit Disorderand the drugging of four million children with the powerful drug Ritalin. Mrs. Iserbyt hasdealt extensively with the root causes of immorality in our society and the role of the publicschools in the teaching of moral relativism (no right/no wrong ethics). She raises a red flagregarding the current efforts of left-wing liberals and right-wing conservatives (radical center)to come up with a new kid on the block—“common ground” character education—whichwill, under the microscope, turn out to be the same warmed-over values educationalert parent groups have resisted for over fifty years. This is a perfect example of theHegelian Dialectic at work. The reader will find in this book a plethora of information that will leave no doubt inthe mind of the serious researcher exactly where the American education system is headed.If we wish to stop this juggernaut toward a socialist-fascist system, then we must restoreeducational freedom to America. Americans forget that the present government educationsystem started as a Prussian import in the 1840’s–’50’s. It was a system built on Hegel’s beliefthat the state was “God” walking on earth. The only way to restore educational freedom,and put education back into the hands of parents where it belongs, is to get the federalgovernment, with its coercive policies, out of education. The billions of dollars being spent bythe federal government to destroy educational freedom must be halted, and that can only bedone by getting American legislators to understand that the American people want to remain afree people, in charge of their own lives and the education of their children. xii

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PREFACE Coexistence on this tightly knit earth should be viewed as an existence not only withoutwars… but also without [the government] telling us how to live, what to say, what to think,what to know, and what not to know. —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from a speech given September 11, 19731 Educated men are as much superior to uneducated men as the living are to the dead. —Aristotle, 384–322 B.C.2For over a twenty-five-year period the research used in this chronology has been collectedfrom many sources: the United States Department of Education; international agencies; stateagencies; the media; concerned educators; parents; legislators, and talented researchers withwhom I have worked. In the process of gathering this information two beliefs that mostAmericans hold in common became clear: 1) If a child can read, write and compute at a reasonably proficient level, he will be able to do just about anything he wishes, enabling him to control his destiny to the extent that God allows (remain free); 2) Providing such basic educational proficiencies is not and should not be an expensive proposition. Since most Americans believe the second premise—that providing basic educationalproficiencies is not and should not be an expensive proposition—it becomes obvious that itis only a radical agenda, the purpose of which is to change values and attitudes (brainwash),that is the costly agenda. In other words, brainwashing by our schools and universities iswhat is bankrupting our nation and our children’s minds. In 1997 there were 46.4 million public school students. During 1993–1994 (the latestyears the statistics were available) the average per pupil expenditure was $6,330.00 in xiii

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Preface1996 constant dollars. Multiply the number of students by the per pupil expenditure(using old-fashioned mathematical procedures) for a total K–12 budget per year of $293.7billion dollars. If one adds the cost of higher education to this figure, one arrives at a totalbudget per year of over half a trillion dollars.3 The sorry result of such an incredibly largeexpenditure—the performance of American students—is discussed in Pursuing Excellence—AStudy of U.S. Twelfth Grade Mathematics and Science Achievement in International Context:Initial Findings from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS), a reportfrom the U.S. Department of Education (NCES 98–049). Pursuing Excellence reads: Achievement of Students, Key Points: U.S. twelfth graders scored below the international average and among the lowest of the 21 TIMSS nations in both mathematics and science general knowledge in the final year of secondary school. (p. 24) Obviously, something is terribly wrong when a $6,330 per pupil expenditure producessuch pathetic results. This writer has visited private schools which charge $1,000 per yearin tuition which enjoy superior academic results. Parents of home-schooled children spend amaximum of $1,000 per year and usually have similar excellent results. There are many talented and respected researchers and activists who have carefullydocumented the “weird” activities which have taken place “in the name of education.” Anyopposition to change agent activities in local schools has invariably been met with cries of“Prove your case, document your statements,” etc. Documentation, when presented, hasbeen ignored and called incomplete. The classic response by the education establishmenthas been, “You’re taking that out of context!”—even when presented with an entire bookwhich uses their own words to detail exactly what the “resisters” are claiming to be true.“Resisters”—usually parents—have been called every name in the book. Parents have beentold for over thirty years, “You’re the only parent who has ever complained.” The media hasbeen convinced to join in the attack upon common sense views, effectively discrediting theperspective of well-informed citizens. The desire by “resisters” to prove their case has been so strong that they have continuedto amass—over a thirty- to fifty-year period—what must surely amount to tons of materialscontaining irrefutable proof, in the education change agents’ own words, of deliberate,malicious intent to achieve behavioral changes in students/parents/society which havenothing to do with commonly understood educational objectives. Upon delivery of such proof,“resisters” are consistently met with the “shoot the messenger” stonewalling response byteachers, school boards, superintendents, state and local officials, as well as the supposedlyobjective institutions of academia and the press. This resister’s book, or collection of research in book form, was put together primarilyto satisfy my own need to see the various components which led to the dumbing down ofthe United States of America assembled in chronological order—in writing. Even I, who hadobserved these weird activities taking place at all levels of government, was reluctant to accepta malicious intent behind each individual, chronological activity or innovation, unless I couldconnect it with other, similar activities taking place at other times. This book, which makessuch connections, has provided for me a much-needed sense of closure. the deliberate dumbing down of america is also a book for my children, grandchildren,and great-grandchildren. I want them to know that there were thousands of Americans whomay not have died or been shot at in overseas wars, but were shot at in small-town “wars” xiv

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Prefaceat school board meetings, at state legislative hearings on education, and, most importantly,in the media. I want my progeny to know that whatever intellectual and spiritual freedomsto which they may still lay claim were fought for—are a result of—the courageous work ofincredible people who dared to tell the truth against all odds. I want them to know that there will always be hope for freedom if they follow in thesepeople’s footsteps; if they cherish the concept of “free will”; if they believe that humanbeings are special, not animals, and that they have intellects, souls, and consciences. Iwant them to know that if the government schools are allowed to teach children K–12 usingPavlovian/Skinnerian animal training methods—which provide tangible rewards only forcorrect answers—there can be no freedom. Why? People “trained”—not educated—by such educational techniques will be fearful oftaking principled, sometimes controversial, stands when called for because these people willhave been programmed to speak up only if a positive reward or response is forthcoming. Theprice of freedom has often been paid with pain and loneliness. In 1971 when I returned to the United States after living abroad for 18 years, I wasshocked to find public education had become a warm, fuzzy, soft, mushy, touchy-feelyexperience, with its purpose being socialization, not learning. From that time on, from thevantage point of having two young sons in the public schools, I became involved—as amember of a philosophy committee for a school, as an elected school board member, asco-founder of Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM), and finally as a senior policyadvisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of the U.S.Department of Education during President Ronald Reagan’s first term of office. OERI was,and is, the office from which all the controversial national and international educationalrestructuring has emanated. Those ten years (1971–1981) changed my life. As an American who had spent manyyears working abroad, I had experienced traveling in and living in socialist countries.When I returned to the United States I realized that America’s transition from a sovereignconstitutional republic to a socialist democracy would not come about through warfare(bullets and tanks) but through the implementation and installation of the “system” inall areas of government—federal, state and local. The brainwashing for acceptance of the“system’s” control would take place in the school—through indoctrination and the use ofbehavior modification, which comes under so many labels: the most recent labels beingOutcome-Based Education, Skinnerian Mastery Learning or Direct Instruction.4 In the 1970sthis writer and many others waged the war against values clarification, which was laterrenamed “critical thinking,” which regardless of the label—and there are bound to bemany more labels on the horizon—is nothing but pure, unadulterated destruction ofabsolute values of right and wrong upon which stable and free societies depend and uponwhich our nation was founded. In 1973 I started the long journey into becoming a “resister,” placing the firstincriminating piece of paper in my “education” files. That first piece of paper was a purpleditto sheet entitled “All About Me,” next to which was a smiley face. It was an open-endedquestionnaire beginning with: “My name is _____.” My son brought it home from publicschool in fourth grade. The questions were highly personal; so much so that they encouragedmy son to lie, since he didn’t want to “spill the beans” about his mother, father and brother.The purpose of such a questionnaire was to find out the student’s state of mind, how he felt,what he liked and disliked, and what his values were. With this knowledge it would be easier xv

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Prefacefor the government school to modify his values and behavior at will—without, of course, thestudent’s knowledge or parents’ consent. That was just the beginning. There was more to come: the new social studies textbookWorld of Mankind. Published by Follett, this book instructed the teacher how to instillhumanistic (no right/no wrong) values in the K–3 students. At the text’s suggestion theteacher was encouraged to take little tots for walks in town during which he would pointout big and small houses, asking the little tots who they thought lived in the houses: Pooror Rich? “What do you think they eat in the big house? ...in the little house?” When Icomplained about this non-educational activity at a school board meeting I was dismissedas a censor and the press did its usual hatchet job on me as a misguided parent. A friend ofmine—a very bright gal who had also lived abroad for years—told me that she had overhearddiscussion of me at the local co-op. The word was out in town that I was a “kook.” That wasnot a “positive response/reward” for my taking what I believed to be a principled position.Since I had not been “trained,” I was just mad! Next stop on the road to becoming a “resister” was to become a member of the schoolphilosophy committee. Our Harvard-educated, professional change agent superintendent gaveall of the committee members a copy of “The Philosophy of Education” (1975 version) fromthe Montgomery County schools in Maryland, hoping to influence whatever recommendationswe would make. (For those who like to eat dessert before soup, read the entry under 1946concerning Community-Centered Schools: The Blueprint for Education in Montgomery County,Maryland. This document was in fact the “Blueprint” for the nation’s schools.) When askedto write a paper expressing our views on the goals of education, I wrote that, amongst othergoals, I felt the schools should strive to instill “sound morals and values in the students.”The superintendent and a few teachers on the committee zeroed in on me, asking “What’sthe definition of ‘sound’ and whose values?” After two failed attempts to get elected to the school board, I finally succeeded in1976 on the third try. The votes were counted three times, even though I had won bya very healthy margin! My experience on the school board taught me that when it comes to modern education,“the end justifies the means.” Our change agent superintendent was more at home witha lie than he was with the truth. Whatever good I accomplished while on the schoolboard—stopping the Planning, Programming and Budgeting System (PPBS) now known asTotal Quality Management (TQM) or Generally Accepted Accounting Procedures/GenerallyAccepted Federal Funding Reporting (GAAP/GAFFR), getting values clarification bannedby the board, and demanding five (yes, 5!) minutes of grammar per day, etc.—was tossedout two weeks after I left office. Another milestone on my journey was an in-service training session entitled “Innovationsin Education.” A retired teacher, who understood what was happening in education, paidfor me to attend. This training program developed by Professor Ronald Havelock of theUniversity of Michigan and funded by the United States Office of Education taught teachersand administrators how to “sneak in” controversial methods of teaching and “innovative”programs. These controversial, “innovative” programs included health education, sexeducation, drug and alcohol education, death education, critical thinking education, etc. Sincethen I have always found it interesting that the controversial school programs are the onlyones that have the word “education” attached to them! I don’t recall—until recently—”mathed.,” “reading ed.,” “history ed.,” or “science ed.” A good rule of thumb for teachers, parents xvi

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Prefaceand school board members interested in academics and traditional values is to question anysubject that has the word “education” attached to it. This in-service training literally “blew my mind.” I have never recovered from it. Thepresenter (change agent) taught us how to “manipulate” the taxpayers/parents into acceptingcontroversial programs. He explained how to identify the “resisters” in the community andhow to get around their resistance. He instructed us in how to go to the highly respectedmembers of the community—those with the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary, Junior League,Little League, YMCA, Historical Society, etc.—to manipulate them into supporting thecontroversial/non-academic programs and into bad-mouthing the resisters. Advice was alsogiven as to how to get the media to support these programs. I left this training—with my very valuable textbook, The Change Agent’s Guide toInnovations in Education, under my arm—feeling very sick to my stomach and in completedenial over that in which I had been involved. This was not the nation in which I grewup; something seriously disturbing had happened between 1953 when I left the UnitedStates and 1971 when I returned.Orchestrated ConsensusIn retrospect, I had just found out that the United States was engaged in war. Peoplewrite important books about war: books documenting the battles fought, the names ofthe generals involved, the names of those who fired the first shot. This book is simply ahistory book about another kind of war: • one fought using psychological methods; • a one-hundred-year war; • a different, more deadly war than any in which our country has ever been involved; • a war about which the average American hasn’t the foggiest idea. The reason Americans do not understand this war is because it has been fought insecret—in the schools of our nation, targeting our children who are captive in classrooms. Thewagers of this war are using very sophisticated and effective tools: • Hegelian Dialectic (common ground, consensus and compromise) • Gradualism (two steps forward; one step backward) • Semantic deception (redefining terms to get agreement without understanding). The Hegelian Dialectic5 is a process formulated by the German philosopher Georg Synthesis (consensus) Thesis Antithesis xvii

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PrefaceWilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) and used by Karl Marx in codifying revolutionaryCommunism as dialectical materialism. This process can be illustrated as: The “Thesis” represents either an established practice or point of view which is pittedagainst the “Antithesis”—usually a crisis of opposition fabricated or created by changeagents—causing the “Thesis” to compromise itself, incorporating some part of the “Antithesis”to produce the “Synthesis”—sometimes called consensus. This is the primary tool in the bagof tricks used by change agents who are trained to direct this process all over the country;much like the in-service training I received. A good example of this concept was voicedby T.H. Bell when he was U.S. Secretary of Education: “[We] need to create a crisis toget consensus in order to bring about change.” (The reader might be reminded that itwas under T.H. Bell’s direction that the U.S. Department of Education implemented thechanges “suggested” by A Nation at Risk—the alarm that was sounded in the early 1980sto announce the “crisis” in education.) Since we have been, as a nation, so relentlessly exposed to this Hegelian dialecticalprocess (which is essential to the smooth operation of the “system”) under the guiseof “reaching consensus” in our involvement in parent-teacher organizations, on schoolboards, in legislatures, and even in goal setting in community service organizations andgroups—including our churches—I want to explain clearly how it works in a practicalapplication. A good example with which most of us can identify involves property taxes forlocal schools. Let us consider an example from Michigan— The internationalist change agents must abolish local control (the “Thesis”) in orderto restructure our schools from academics to global workforce training (the “Synthesis”).Funding of education with the property tax allows local control, but it also enables the changeagents and teachers’ unions to create higher and higher school budgets paid for withhigher taxes, thus infuriating homeowners. Eventually, property owners accept the changeagents’ radical proposal (the “Anti- thesis”) to reduce their property taxes by transferringeducation funding from the local property tax to the state income tax. Thus, the changeagents accomplish their ultimate goal; the transfer of funding of education from the locallevel to the state level. When this transfer occurs it increases state/federal control andfunding, leading to the federal/internationalist goal of implementing global workforce trainingthrough the schools (the “Synthesis”).6 Regarding the power of “gradualism,” remember the story of the frog and how he didn’tsave himself because he didn’t realize what was happening to him? He was thrown intocold water which, in turn, was gradually heated up until finally it reached the boilingpoint and he was dead. This is how “gradualism” works through a series of “createdcrises” which utilize Hegel’s dialectical process, leading us to more radical change thanwe would ever otherwise accept. In the instance of “semantic deception”—do you remember your kindly principal tellingyou that the new decision-making program would help your child make better decisions?What good parent wouldn’t want his or her child to learn how to make “good” decisions?Did you know that the decision-making program is the same controversial values clarificationprogram recently rejected by your school board and against which you may have givenrepeated testimony? As I’ve said before, the wagers of this intellectual social war haveemployed very effective weapons to implement their changes. This war has, in fact, become the war to end all wars. If citizens on this planet can bebrainwashed or robotized, using dumbed-down Pavlovian/Skinnerian education, to accept xviii

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Prefacewhat those in control want, there will be no more wars. If there are no rights or wrongs,there will be no one wanting to “right” a “wrong.” Robots have no conscience. The onlypermissible conscience will be the United Nations or a global conscience. Whether anaction is good or bad will be decided by a “Global Government’s Global Conscience,” asrecommended by Dr. Brock Chisholm, executive secretary of the World Health Organization,Interim Commission, in 1947—and later in 1996 by current United States Secretary of StateMadeline Albright. (See quotes in entry under 1947.) You may protest, “But, no one has died in this war.” Is that the only criteria we havewith which to measure whether war is war? Didn’t Aristotle say it well when he said,“Educated men are as much superior to uneducated men as the living are to the dead”? Towithhold the tools of education can kill a person’s spirit just as surely as a bullet his body.The tragedy is that many Americans have died in other wars to protect the freedoms beingtaken away in this one. This war which produces the death of intellect and freedom isnot waged by a foreign enemy but by the silent enemy in the ivory towers, in our owngovernment, and in tax-exempt foundations—the enemy whose every move I have tried todocument in this book, usually in his/her/its own words. Ronald Havelock’s change agent in-service training prepared me for what I wouldfind in the U.S. Department of Education when I worked there from 1981–1982. The use oftaxpayers’ hard-earned money to fund Havelock’s “Change Agent Manual” was only one outof hundreds of expensive U.S. Department of Education grants each year going everywhere,even overseas, to further the cause of internationalist “dumbing down” education (behaviormodification) so necessary for the present introduction of global workforce training. Iwas relieved of my duties after leaking an important technology grant (computer-assistedinstruction proposal) to the press. Much of this book contains quotes from government documents detailing the realpurposes of American education: • to use the schools to change America from a free, individual nation to a socialist, global “state,” just one of many socialist states which will be subservient to the United Nations Charter, not the United States Constitution • to brainwash our children, starting at birth, to reject individualism in favor of collectivism • to reject high academic standards in favor of OBE/ISO 1400/90007 egalitarianism • to reject truth and absolutes in favor of tolerance, situational ethics and consensus • to reject American values in favor of internationalist values (globalism) • to reject freedom to choose one’s career in favor of the totalitarian K–12 school-to- work/OBE process, aptly named “limited learning for lifelong labor,”8 coordinated through United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Only when all children in public, private and home schools are robotized—and believeas one—will World Government be acceptable to citizens and able to be implemented withoutfiring a shot. The attractive-sounding “choice” proposals will enable the globalist elite toachieve their goal: the robotization (brainwashing) of all Americans in order to gain theiracceptance of lifelong education and workforce training—part of the world managementsystem to achieve a new global feudalism. xix

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Preface The socialist/fascist global workforce training agenda is being implemented as I writethis book. The report to the European Commission entitled Transatlantic Co-operation inInternational Education: Projects of the Handswerkskammer Koblenz with Partners in theUnited States and in the European Union by Karl-Jurgen Wilbert and Bernard Eckgold(May 1997) says in part: In June, 1994, with the support of the Handswerkskamer Koblenz, an American-German vocational education conference took place... at the University of Texas at Austin. The vocational education researchers and economic specialists... were in agreement that an economic and employment policy is necessary where a systematic vocational training is as equally important as an academic education, as a “career pathway.” ...The first practical steps along these lines, which are also significant from the point of view of the educational policy, were made with the vocational training of American apprentices in skilled craft companies, in the area of the Koblenz chamber.Under section “e) Scientific Assistance for the Projects,” one reads: The international projects ought to be scientifically assisted and analyzed both for the feedback to the transatlantic dialogue on educational policy, and also for the assessment and qualitative improvement of the cross-border vocational education projects. As a result it should be made possible on the German side to set up a connection to other projects of German-American cooperation in vocational training; e.g., of the federal institute for vocational training for the project in the U.S. state of Maine. On the USA side an interlinking with other initiatives for vocational training—for example, through the Center for the Study of Human Resources at the University of Texas, Austin—would be desirable. This particular document discusses the history of apprenticeships—especially therole of medieval guilds—and attempts to make a case for nations which heretofore havecherished liberal economic ideas—i.e., individual economic freedom—to return to a systemof cooperative economic solutions (the guild system used in the Middle Ages which acceptedvery young children from farms and cities and trained them in “necessary” skills). Anotherword for this is “serfdom.” Had our elected officials at the federal, state, and local levelsread this document, they could never have voted in favor of socialist/fascist legislationimplementing workforce training to meet the needs of the global economy. Unless, of course,they happen to support such a totalitarian economic system. (This incredible documentwas accessed at the following internet address: http://www.kwk-koblenz.de/ausland/trans-uk.doc ) Just as Barbara Tuchman or another historian would do in writing the history of theother kinds of wars, I have identified chronologically the major battles, players, datesand places. I know that researchers and writers with far more talent than I will feel that Ihave neglected some key events in this war. I stand guilty on all counts, even before theirwell-researched charges are submitted. Yes, much of importance has been left out, due tospace limitations, but the overview of the battlefields and maneuvers will give the reader anopportunity to glimpse the immensity of this conflict. In order to win a battle one must know who the “real” enemy is. Otherwise, one isshooting in the dark and often hitting those not the least bit responsible for the mayhem.This book, hopefully, identifies the “real” enemy and provides Americans involved in thiswar—be they plain, ordinary citizens, elected officials, or traditional teachers—with the xx

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Prefaceammunition to fight to obtain victory.Endnotes:1 Noted Soviet dissident, slave labor camp intern, and author of The Gulag Archipelago and numerous other books.2 The Basic Works of Aristotle, Richard McKeon, Ed., from Familiar Quotations by John Bartlett, 14th ed. (Little, Brown & Co.: Boston, Toronto, 1968).3 Statistics taken from The Condition of Education, 1997, published by the National Center for Educational Statistics, U.S. Department of Education (NCES 97–388). Internet address: http://www.ed/gov/NCES.4 OBE/ML/DI or outcomes-based education/mastery learning/direct instruction.5 Dean Gotcher, author of The Dialectic & Praxis: Diaprax and the End of the Ages and other materials dealing with dialectical consensus building and human relations training, has done some excellent work in this area of research. For more detailed information on this process, please write to Dean Gotcher of the Institution for Authority Research, 5436 S. Boston Pl., Tulsa, Oklahoma 74l05, or call 918–742–3855.6 See Appendix XXII for an article by Tim Clem which explains this process in much more detail.7 ISO stands for International Standards of Operation for manufacturing (9000) and human resources (1400), coordinated through the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).8 “Privatization or Socialization” by C. Weatherly, 1994. Delivered as part of a speech to a group in Minnesota and later pub- lished in The Christian Conscience magazine (Vol. 1, No. 2: February 1995, pp. 29–30). xxi

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In particular I want to thank a handful of government officials who provided me withimportant documents. They must remain anonymous for obvious reasons. I would also like to mention several incredibly fine Americans who are unfortunately nolonger with us, who provided me with the priceless research and necessary resources to writethis book. They are: Jo-Ann Abrigg, Rexford Daniels, Norman Dodd, Ruth Feld, Mary Larkin,Judge Robert Morris, Walter Crocker Pew and Mary Royer. Very special thanks go to the following education researchers and writers with whomI have worked and who have contributed to and made this book possible (in alphabeticalorder): Mary Adams, Polly Anglin, Marilyn Boyer, Shirley Correll, Peggy and Dennis Cuddy,Janet Egan, Melanie Fields, Ann Frazier, Betty Freauf, Jeannie Georges, Peggy Grimes,Rosalind Haley, Karen Hayes, Tracey Hayes, Maureen Heaton, Mary Jo Heiland, Ann Herzer,Anita Hoge, Betsy Kraus, Jacqueline and Malcolm Lawrence, Mina Legg, Bettye and KirkLewis, Joanne Lisac, Joan Masters, Nancy Maze, Janelle Moon, Opal Moore, Barbara Morris,LuAnne Robson, Patricia Royall, Elisabeth Russinoff, Cris Shardelman, Debbie Stevens, RoseStewart, Elisabeth Trotto, Georgiana Warner, Geri Wenta, and Jil Wilson. Thanks are alsoextended to their respective spouses who made their contributions possible. Obviously, the job of editing this book was monumental! Cynthia Weatherly, who isone of the nation’s finest education researchers and talented writers and with whom I haveworked for twenty years, took my rough manuscript and turned it into a mammoth historicalpresentation. Her incredible work on this book represents a true labor of love for thisnation and for our children and grandchildren. I will forever be grateful to Cindi and herhusband, Neal, who extended a gracious welcome to me each time I descended upon them,including a four-month stay last winter! In addition, my deepest thanks go to the Leslie family of Conscience Press—Sarah,Lynn and Colin, and Sarah’s parents, Paul and Jean Huling, each of whom contributed in xxiii

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Acknowledgmentshis own vital way to the publication of this book in such a professional manner. How thisfamily published this book and managed at the same time to make three moves in andout of different houses during this one-year period is beyond belief. There are no wordsto express this writer’s gratitude for this one family’s contribution to the preservationof liberty for all Americans. Of course, the book would never have seen the light of day without the very professionaljob delivered by Tim and Janet Fields of The Athens Printing Company of Athens, Georgia.Tim’s unbelievable patience with interminable delays was beyond the call of duty. And last, but not least, thanks to the folks at the reference desk of the Universityof Georgia Library, who cheerfully and professionally assisted the writer and editorwith critical documentation, and to Air Tran, whose extremely reasonable airfare fromBoston to Atlanta allowed Cindi and me to collaborate on the most important stages ofthis book’s production. Deepest apologies to whomever I have neglected to mention. You will find a specialplace in Heaven. xxiv

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INTRODUCTION In the fall of l972 a small group of students in an introduction to educational psychologyclass at a midwestern university saved every single soul in the lifeboat. The professor became agitated. “No! Go back and do the exercise again. Followthe instructions.” The students, products of the radical 1960s culture, expected this to be a small groupassignment in creativity and ingenuity. They had worked out an intricate plan wherebyeveryone in the lifeboat could survive. When the professor persisted, the students resisted—andultimately refused to do the exercise. Chalk up a victory to the human spirit. However, it was a short-lived victory. This overloaded “lifeboat in crisis” representeda dramatic shift in education. The exercise—in which students were compelled to choosewhich humans were expendable and, therefore, should be cast off into the water—becamea mainstay in classrooms across the country. Creative solutions? Not allowed. Instructions?Strictly adhered to. In truth, there is to be only one correct answer to the lifeboatdrama: death. The narrowing (dumbing down) of intellectual freedom had begun. Lifeboat exercisesepitomize the shift in education from academic education (1880–1960) to values education(1960–1980). In the deliberate dumbing down of america writer Charlotte Iserbyt chroniclesthis shift and the later shift to workforce training “education” (1980–2000). The case is madethat the values education period was critical to the transformation of education. It succeededin persuading (brainwashing? duping?) Americans into accepting the belief that values weretransient, flexible and situational—subject to the evolution of human society. Brave newvalues were integrated into curricula and instruction. The mind of the average Americanbecame “trained” (conditioned) to accept the idea that education exists solely for the purposeof getting a good paying job in the global workforce economy. xxv

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Introduction “Human capital,” a term coined by reformers to describe our children, implies thathumans are expendable. This explains why the lifeboat exercise has been used so rampantly,and why it was so critical to the education reformers’ plans. Is it any wonder, then, thatwe witnessed the horror of the Littleton, Colorado shootings, and that other violencein schools across the country is increasing? Death education in the classroom may belinked to deaths in the classroom. The dumbing down of a nation inevitably leads tothe death of a culture. The premise of Charlotte Iserbyt’s chronological history of the “deliberate dumbingdown” of America is borne out by the author’s extensive documentation, gathered from theeducation community’s own sources. Iserbyt isolates the public policy end of education andsticks with it from decade to decade, steadfastly documenting the controversial methodologythat has been institutionalized into legislation, public documents and other importantpapers setting forth public agenda. By choosing to focus on public policy in the contextof academic theory, Iserbyt fills an important void in anti-reform literature. Her mostimportant contribution is demonstrating how theory influenced public policy, publicpolicy influenced theory, and how this ultimately affected practice—how policy and theoryplayed out in the classroom. Iserbyt skillfully demonstrates the interconnections between the international, national,regional, state and local plans for the transformation of American society via education.Iserbyt connects the evolution of education in the twentieth century to major significantgeopolitical, social and economic events which have influenced education policy. Thisattention to detail adds important context to the events chronicled in the book, a dimensionnot found in other books critiquing education reform. For too many years the late Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner has been virtually ignoredby conservative leaders, who focused their criticism exclusively on pervasive culturalinfluences of the humanistic psychologists (Rogers, Maslow, et al.). Skinner was written offas a utopian psychologist who represented no threat. Iserbyt’s premise, proven well, is thatB.F. Skinner is comfortably alive and well—embedded within modern education methods.Direct Instruction, Mastery Learning and Outcome-Based Education are irrefutably thecurrent incarnation of Skinner’s 1960s Programmed Instruction—a method of instructionwhich linked children to the computer and turned learning into a flow chart of managedbehaviors. Interwoven throughout the book is the important theme of operant conditioning ineducation. Surprisingly, Iserbyt never debates the effectiveness of the method. Entry afterentry in the book substantiates Iserbyt’s premise that the method is purposefully used tocreate a robotic child—one who cannot make connections, repeat an act, nor recall afact unless provided with the necessary stimuli and environment (like a dog who learnsto sit after the immediate receipt of a dog biscuit). Iserbyt reaches the inescapableconclusion that the method perfectly complements the reformers’ agenda for a dumbed-downglobal workforce. Iserbyt so effectively nails down her case that the debate noticeably shifts to the ethicsof implementing such a method on children. The late Christian apologist and theologian,Dr. Francis Schaeffer, when discussing the evils of B.F. Skinner in his little booklet Back toFreedom and Dignity (1972), warned: “Within the Skinnerian system there are no ethicalcontrols; there is no boundary limit to what can be done by the elite in whose hands controlresides.” There is intriguing evidence in Iserbyt’s book that the “democratic” society of the xxvi

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Introductionnear future will be managed via systematized operant conditioning—a startling propositionwith ramifications which reach far beyond the scope of simple education reform. Inevitably, questions and controversy will arise after publication of this book. How manypopular computer games, programs, and curricula for children are heavily dependent uponthis method—a method which requires immediate rewards? To what extent have home schooland Christian school leaders, authors, and curriculum companies endorsed and utilized thismethod? How many child rearing (training) programs, workbooks and seminars are basedupon these Skinnerian methods? After reading this book parents will no longer be duped intoaccepting behaviorist methods—in whatever guise, or by whatever name they come. Publication of the deliberate dumbing down of america is certain to add fuel to the firein this nation’s phonics wars. Ever since publication of her first work (Back to Basics Reformor OBE Skinnerian International Curriculum, 1985), Iserbyt has been trumpeting the fact thatthe Skinnerian method applied in the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI) isthe very same method applied in Siegfried Engelmann’s DISTAR (Direct Instruction Systemfor Teaching and Remediation, now known as Reading Mastery). In her latest work, Iserbytprovides exhaustive documentation that Direct Instruction (a.k.a. systematic, intensivephonics)—which is being institutionalized nationally under the guise of “traditional” phonicsthanks to the passage of The Reading Excellence Act of 1998—relies on the Skinnerianmethod to teach reading. Charlotte Iserbyt is the consummate whistle-blower. The writer describes her ownpersonal experiences as a school board director and as senior policy advisor in the U.S.Department of Education’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement—from whichemanated most of the dumbing down programs described in this book. There are no sacredcows in Iserbyt’s reporting of the chronological history of education reform. With littlefanfare, the agendas and methods of key reform leaders (conservative and liberal) are allowedto unmask themselves in their own words and by their own actions. Of particular interestis Iserbyt’s material on the issue of school “choice”—abundant evidence from both sides ofthe political spectrum. The reader will learn that private, Christian and home schools are allneatly tied into the reform web via computer technology, databanking, assessment testingand, ultimately, the intention to use rewards and penalties to enforce compliance to the“transformed” system of education in this country. The careful researcher will appreciate the fact that the book is heavily documented butuser-friendly. Citations are designed for the average reader, not just the academician. Thechronological format of the book allows one to read forward or backward in time, or oneentry at a time, according to personal preference. The accompanying appendices provide asource of in-depth topical material, which frees up the chronological text from becomingbogged down in details. The index and glossary are such valuable research tools that theyare worth the price of the book. Iserbyt does very little hand-holding throughout the book. Commentary is sparse; readerscan make their own connections and insert their own personal experiences. Iserbyt hasstrategically laid down key pieces to a giant jigsaw puzzle. The overall picture is purposefullyarranged to portray one point of view. However, readers will be hard-pressed to come upwith an alternative view. Just when it seems that one piece of the puzzle is an isolated,insignificant event, suddenly one comes across a stunning new entry that puts the piecestightly together to form a vivid picture of the overall plan. Try as one might, the reader cannotescape the consistent, deliberate, 100-year plan to dumb down the populace. xxvii

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Introduction Amidst all of the policy documents and historical data in the book, one can easilyidentify the heart of the writer. Iserbyt gently reminds the reader that the real issue at handis the child. It is America’s children who are experiencing the full brunt of the newmethods, new curricula and new agendas in the classroom. Many readers will experiencethe “light bulb” turning on as they fully come to understand how the innovations whichhave occurred in education during the last century affected their parents, themselves,their children and grandchildren. Teachers may find the contents of this book particularly enlightening and refreshing.Iserbyt takes the reader behind the scenes to reveal the true nature of many popularclassroom curricula. The truth will be comforting to those who have utilized certain programsor methods, and perhaps were troubled by them, but didn’t know the full scope or planbehind them. Iserbyt does not ignore or soft-peddle the ethical issues, but encourages thereader to take the high moral ground. The other day a caller phoned into Rush Limbaugh’s daily radio talk show. The caller’swife earns $25,000 per year as a teacher. She has 30 students. Her school district receives $9,000per year per student. This totals $270,000 per year. “Why isn’t my wife being paid more?” heasked. The caller—and people like him—should be referred to the deliberate dumbing down ofamerica. In this book they will find the scandalous answer. It has something to do with whywe have a generation of—as Limbaugh describes it—”young skulls full of mush.” SARAH LESLIE xxviii

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The human brain should be used for processing, not storage. —Thomas A. Kelly, Ph.D. The Effective School Report

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1 THE SOWING OF THE SEEDS: late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries “The Sowing of the Seeds: late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” is the short-est chapter of the deliberate dumbing down of america. Undoubtedly, this chapter may be one of themost important since the philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Wilhelm Wundt, and John Dewey etal., reflect a total departure from the traditional definition of education like the one given in The NewCentury Dictionary of the English Language (Appleton, Century, Crofts: New York, 1927): The drawing out of a person’s innate talents and abilities by imparting the knowledge of languages, scientific reasoning, history, literature, rhetoric, etc.—the channels through which those abilities would flourish and serve.1A quantum leap was taken from the above definition to the new, dehumanizing definition used bythe experimental psychologists found in An Outline of Educational Psychology (Barnes & Noble: NewYork, 1934, rev. ed.) by Rudolph Pintner et al. That truly revolutionary definition claims that learning is the result of modifiability in the paths of neural conduction. Explanations of even such forms of learning as abstraction and generalization demand of the neurones only growth, excitability, conductivity, and modifiability. The mind is the connection-system of man; and learning is the process of connecting. The situation-response formula is adequate to cover learning of any sort, and the really influential factors in learning are readiness of the neurones, sequence in time, belongingness, and satisfying consequences.2 An in-depth understanding of the deplorable situation found in our nation’s schools today isimpossible without an understanding of the redefinition in the above statements. Education in the 1

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2twenty-first century will, for the majority of youth, be workforce training. Thus, the need for Pavlovian/Skinnerian methodology based on operant conditioning which, in essence, is at the heart of the abovedehumanizing definition of education. This “sowing of the seeds” through redefinition will reap thedeath of traditional, liberal arts education through the advent of mastery learning, outcome-basededucation, and direct instruction—all of which will be performance-based and behaviorist. 1762EMILE BY JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU (CHEZ JEAN NEAULME DUCHESNE: A. AMSTERDAM [Paris],1762) was published. Rousseau’s “Social Contract” presented in Emile influenced the FrenchRevolution. In this book Rousseau promoted child-centered “permissive education” in whicha teacher “should avoid strict discipline and tiresome lessons.” Both Rousseau (1712–1788)and Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) believed that the “whole child”should be educated by “doing,” and that religion should not be a guiding principle in edu-cation, a theme we shall see repeated over the next 238 years. 1832WILHELM WUNDT, FOUNDER OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY AND THE FORCE BEHIND ITS dissemi-nation throughout the Western world, was born in 1832 in Neckarau, southern Germany. Thefollowing excerpts concerning Wundt’s contribution to modern education are taken from TheLeipzig Connection: The Systematic Destruction of American Education by Paolo Lionni andLance J. Klass3 (Heron Books: Portland, Ore., 1980): To Wundt, a thing made sense and was worth pursuing if it could be measured, quantified, and scientifically demonstrated. Seeing no way to do this with the human soul, he proposed that psychology concern itself solely with experience. As Wundt put it... Karl Marx injected Hegel’s theories with economics and sociology, developing a “philosophy of dialectical materialism.”… (p. 8) From Wundt’s work it was only a short step to the later redefinition of education. Origi- nally, education meant drawing out of a person’s innate talents and abilities by imparting the knowledge of languages, scientific reasoning, history, literature, rhetoric, etc.—the channels through which those abilities would flourish and serve. To the experimental psychologist, however, education became the process of exposing the student to “meaningful” experiences so as to ensure desired reactions: [L]earning is the result of modifiability in the paths of neural conduction. Explanations of even such forms of learning as abstraction and generalization demand of the neurones only growth, excitability, conductivity, and modifiability. The mind is the connection-system of man; and learning is the process of connecting. The situation-response formula is adequate to cover learning of any sort, and the really influential factors in learning are readiness of the neurones, sequence in time, belongingness, and satisfying consequences.4 If one assumes (as did Wundt) that there is nothing there to begin with but a body, a brain, a nervous system, then one must try to educate by inducing sensations in that ner-

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The Sowing of the Seeds : c. 1862 3 vous system. Through these experiences, the individual will learn to respond to any given stimulus, with the “correct” response. The child is not, for example, thought capable of volitional control over his actions, or of deciding whether he will act or not act in a certain way; his actions are thought to be preconditioned and beyond his control, he is a stimulus- response mechanism. According to this thinking, he is his reactions. Wundt’s thesis laid the philosophical basis for the principles of conditioning later developed by Pavlov (who studied physiology in Leipzig in 1884, five years after Wundt had inaugurated his laboratory there) and American behavioral psychologists such as Watson and Skinner; for laboratories and electroconvulsive therapy; for schools oriented more toward socialization of the child than toward the development of intellect; and for the emergence of a society more and more blatantly devoted to the gratification of sensory desire at the expense of responsibility and achievement. (pp. 14–15)[Ed. Note: The reader should purchase The Leipzig Connection: The Systematic Destruction ofAmerican Education, a slim paperback book which, in this writer’s opinion, is the most use-ful and important book available regarding the method used to change children’s behavior/values and to “dumb down” an entire society. The authors, Lionni and Klass, have made anoutstanding contribution to the history of American education and to the understanding ofwhy and how America, which up until the 1930s had the finest education system in the world,ended up with one of the worst education systems in the industrialized world in a short periodof fifty years. Another commentary on the importance of Wundt’s theories comes from Dennis L. Cuddy,Ph.D., in an excellent article entitled “The Conditioning of America” (The Christian News,New Haven, Mo., December 11, 1989).5 An excerpt follows: The conditioning of modern American society began with John Dewey, a psychologist, a Fabian Socialist and the “Father of Progressive Education.” Dewey used the psychology developed in Leipzig by Wilhelm Wundt, and believed that through a stimulus-response approach (like Pavlov) students could be conditioned for a new social order.] 1862THE FIRST EXPERIMENT WITH “OUTCOME-BASED EDUCATION” (OBE) WAS CONDUCTED IN Englandin 1862. Teacher opposition resulted in abandonment of the experiment. Don Martin of Uni-versity of Pittsburgh, George E. Overholt and Wayne J. Urban of Georgia State Universitywrote Accountability in American Education: A Critique (Princeton Book Company: Princeton,N.J., 1976) containing a section entitled “Payment for Results” which chronicles the Englishexperiment. The following excerpt outlines the experiment: The call for “sound and cheap” elementary instruction was answered by legislation, passed by Parliament during 1862, known as The Revised Code. This was the legislation that produced payment [for] results, the nineteenth century English accountability system.... The opposition to the English payment-[for]-results system which arose at the time of its introduction was particularly interesting. Teachers provided the bulk of the resistance, and they based their objections on both educational and economic grounds.... They abhorred the narrowness and mechanical character the system imposed on the educational process. They also objected to the economic burden forced upon them by basing their pay on student performance.

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4[Ed. Note: “Payment for Results” and Outcome-Based Education are based on teacher ac-countability and require teaching to the test, the results of which are to be “measured” foraccountability purposes. Both methods of teaching result in a narrow, mechanistic system ofeducation similar to Mastery Learning. Teachers in the United States in 1999, as were teach-ers involved in the experiment in England, will be judged and paid according to students’test scores; i.e., how well the teachers teach to the test. Proponents of Mastery Learningbelieve that almost all children can learn if given enough time, adequate resources geared tothe individual learning style of the student, and a curriculum aligned to test items (teach tothe test). Mastery Learning uses Skinnerian methodology (operant conditioning) in order toobtain “predictable” results. Benjamin Bloom, the father of Mastery Learning, says that “thepurpose of education is to change the thoughts, actions and feelings of students.” MasteryLearning (ML) and its fraternal twin Direct Instruction (DI) are key components of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and Effective Schools Research (ESR). The reader is urged to study thedefinitions of all these terms, including the behaviorist term section found in the glosssary ofthis book prior to reading further. The one common thread running through this book relatesto these terms and their importance in the implementation of workforce training and attitudeand value change.] 1874EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE WAS BORN AUGUST 31, 1874 IN WILLIAMSBURG, MASSACHUsetts. Thorn-dike was trained in the new psychology by the first generation of Wilhelm Wundt’s protegés.He graduated from Wesleyan University in 1895 after having studied with Wundtians AndrewC. Armstrong and Charles Judd. He went to graduate school at Harvard and studied underpsychologist William James. While at Harvard, Thorndike surprised James by doing researchwith chickens, testing their behavior, and pioneering what later became known as “animalpsychology.” As briefly stated by Thorndike himself, psychology was the “science of the in-tellect, character, and behavior of animals, including man.”6 To further excerpt The LeipzigConnection’s excellent treatment of Thorndike’s background: Thorndike applied for a fellowship at Columbia, was accepted by Cattell, and moved with his two most intelligent chickens to New York, where he continued his research and earned his Ph.D. in 1893. Thorndike’s specialty was the “puzzle box,” into which he would put various animals (chickens, rats, cats) and let them find their way out by themselves. His doctoral dissertation on cats has become part of the classical literature of psychology. After receiv- ing his doctorate, he spent a year as a teacher at Western Reserve University, and it wasn’t long before Cattell advised Dean [James Earl] Russell to visit Thorndike’s first classroom at Western Reserve: “Although the Dean found him ‘dealing with the investigations of mice and monkeys,’ he came away satisfied that he was worth trying out on humans.” Russell offered Thorndike a job at Teachers College, where the experimenter remained for the next thirty years. Thorndike was the first psychologist to study animal behavior in an experimental psychology laboratory and (following Cattell’s suggestion) apply the same techniques to children and youth; as one result, in 1903, he published the book Educational Psychology. In the following years he published a total of 507 books, monographs, and ar- ticles. Thorndike’s primary assumption was the same as Wundt’s: that man is an animal, that his actions are actually always reactions, and that he can be studied in the laboratory

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The Sowing of the Seeds : c. 1896 5 in much the same way as an animal might be studied. Thorndike equated children with the rats, monkeys, fish, cats, and chickens upon which he experimented in his laboratory and was prepared to apply what he found there to learning in the classroom. He extrapolated “laws” from his research into animal behavior which he then applied to the training of teachers, who took what they had learned to every corner of the United States and ran their classrooms, curricula, and schools, on the basis of this new “educational” psychology. In The Principles of Teaching Based on Psychology (1906), Thorndike proposed making “the study of teaching scientific and practical.” Thorndike’s definition of the art of teaching is the art of giving and withholding stimuli with the result of producing or preventing certain responses. In this definition the term stimulus is used widely for any event which influences a person—for a word spoken to him, a look, a sentence which he reads, the air he breathes, etc., etc. The term response is used for any reaction made by him—a new thought, a feel- ing of interest, a bodily act, any mental or bodily condition resulting from the stimulus. The aim of the teacher is to produce desirable and prevent undesirable changes in human beings by producing and preventing certain responses. The means at the disposal of the teacher are the stimuli which can be brought to bear upon the pupil—the teacher’s words, gestures, and appearance, the condition and appliances of the school room, the books to be used and objects to be seen, and so on through a long list of the things and events which the teacher can control. 1896PSYCHOLOGY BY JOHN DEWEY, THE FATHER OF “PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION,” WAS PUBLISHED (Uni-versity of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1896). This was the first American textbook on the “revised”subject of education. Psychology would become the most widely-read and quoted textbookused in schools of education in this country. Just prior to the publication of his landmark book,Dewey had joined the faculty of the Rockefeller-endowed University of Chicago as head of thecombined departments of philosophy, psychology and pedagogy (teaching). In that same year,1895, the university allocated $1,000 to establish a laboratory in which Dewey could applypsychological principles and experimental techniques to the study of learning. The laboratoryopened in January 1896 as the Dewey School, later to become known as The University ofChicago Laboratory School.7 Dewey thought of the school as a place where his theories of education could be put into practice, tested, and scientifically eval- uated…. …Dewey… sought to apply the doctrines of experience and experiment to everyday life and, hence, to education... seeking via this model institution to pave the way for the “schools of the future.” There he had put into actual practice three of the revolutionary beliefs he had culled from the new psychology: that to put the child in possession of his fullest talents, education should be active rather than passive; that to prepare the child for a democratic society, the school should be social rather than individualist; and that to enable the child to think creatively, experimentation rather than imitation should be encouraged.8 Samuel Blumenfeld in his book, The Whole Language/OBE Fraud (Paradigm Co.: Boise,Idaho, 1996), further explains Dewey’s perspective:

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6 What kind of curriculum would fit the school that was a mini-cooperative society? Dewey’s recommendation was indeed radical: build the curriculum not around academic subjects but around occupational activities which provided maximum opportunities for peer interaction and socialization. Since the beginning of Western civilization, the school curriculum was cen- tered around the development of academic skills, the intellectual faculties, and high literacy. Dewey wanted to change all of that. Why? Because high literacy produced that abominable form of independent intelligence which was basically, as Dewey believed, anti-social. Thus, from Dewey’s point of view, the school’s primary commitment to literacy was indeed the key to the whole problem. In 1898, Dewey wrote an essay, “The Primary-Edu- cation Fetish,” in which he explained exactly what he meant: There is... a false education god whose idolators are legion, and whose cult influences the entire educational system. This is language study—the study not of foreign language, but of English; not in higher, but in primary education. It is almost an unquestioned assumption, of educational theory and practice both, that the first three years of a child’s school life shall be mainly taken up with learning to read and write his own language. If we add to this the learning of a certain amount of numerical combinations, we have the pivot about which primary education swings.... It does not follow, however, that conditions—social, industrial and intellectual—have undergone such a radical change, that the time has come for a thoroughgoing examination of the emphasis put upon linguistic work in elementary instruction.... The plea for the predominance of learning to read in early school life because of the great importance attaching to literature seems to me a perversion.Endnotes:1 Paolo Lionni and Lance J. Klass. The Leipzig Connection: The Systematic Destruction of American Education (Heron Books: Portland, Ore., 1980).2 Ibid.3 The Leipzig Connection may be obtained by sending a check for $11.45 to: Heron Books, P.O. Box 503, Sheridan, OR, or by calling 1–503–843–3834.4 Rudolph Pintner et al. An Outline of Educational Psychology, Revised (Barnes & Noble: New York, 1934), p. 79.5 Dr. Cuddy’s important publications on the history of American education, from which this writer has frequently quoted, can be obtained by writing: Florida ProFamily Forum, Inc., P.O. Box 1059, Highland City, FL 33846–1059; or by calling 1–914–644–6218. Cuddy’s newly revised edition of Chronology of Education with Quotable Quotes and Secret Records Revealed: The Men, the Money and the Methods Behind the New World Order should be in the library of every serious education researcher.6 The Leipzig Connection, pp. 36–39.7 Ibid.8 These quotes taken from Ida B. DePencier’s book, The History of the Laboratory Schools: The University of Chicago, 1896–1965 (Quadrangle Books: Chicago, 1967) and A History of Teachers College: Columbia University by Lawrence A. Cremin, David A. Shannon, and Mary Evelyn Townsend (Columbia University Press: New York, 1934), as cited in The Leipzig Connection.

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2 THE TURNING OF THE TIDES*: early twentieth century For a nation that had been able to point with pride to extraordinary advances in allareas of endeavor carried out by individuals, with no assistance whatsoever from the government,the early years of the twentieth century surely reflected a “Turning of the Tides.” An alien collectivist(socialist) philosophy, much of which came from Europe, crashed onto the shores of our nation,bringing with it radical changes in economics, politics, and education, funded—surprisinglyenough—by several wealthy American families and their tax-exempt foundations. The goal of these wealthy families and their foundations—a seamless non-competitive globalsystem for commerce and trade—when stripped of flowery expressions of concern for minorities,the less fortunate, etc., represented the initial stage of what this author now refers to as thedeliberate dumbing down of america. Seventy years later, the carefully laid plans to change America from a sovereign, constitutionalrepublic with a free enterprise economic base to just one of many nations in an international socialist(collectivist) system (New World Order) are apparent. Only a dumbed down population, with nomemory of America’s roots as a prideful nation, could be expected to willingly succumb to theglobal workforce training planned by the Carnegie Corporation and the John D. Rockefellers, Iand II, in the early twentieth century which is being implemented by the United States Congressin the year 1999.* “The Turning of the Tides” is the title of a report submitted to Congress by Hon. Paul W. Shafer (Mich.) and John Howland Snow. The original text was delivered in the House of Representatives on March 21, 1952. 7

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8 1902THE GENERAL EDUCATION BOARD (GEB) WAS INCORPORATED BY AN ACT OF THE UNITED StatesCongress. Approved January 12, 1902, the General Education Board was endowed by Mr. JohnD. Rockefeller, Sr., for the purpose of establishing an educational laboratory to experimentwith early innovations in education. 1905IN 1905 THE INTERCOLLEGIATE SOCIALIST SOCIETY (ISS) WAS FOUNDED IN NEW YORK CITYby Upton Sinclair, Jack London, Clarence Darrow and others. Its permanent headquarterswere established at the Rand School of Social Studies in 1908 and ISS became the Leaguefor Industrial Democracy (LID) in 1921. John Dewey became president of the League forIndustrial Democracy in 1939.THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING WAS FOUNDED IN 1905.Henry S. Pritchett served as the Foundation’s first president. Pritchett was the author ofWhat Is Religion and Other Student Questions (Houghton Mifflin Company: Boston, 1906),Relations of Denominations to Colleges (1908), and A Woman’s Opportunities in ChristianIndustry and Business (1907). 1906NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION (NEA) BECAME A FEDERALLY CHARTERED ASSOCIATION forteachers in 1906 under the authority of H.R. 10501. Originally founded in 1857, it was knownas the National Teachers Association until 1870. 1908IN 1908 ITALIAN EDUCATOR, THE LATE MARIA MONTESSORI (1870–1952), DEVELOPED A methodof teaching—relying on guidance and training of senses rather than more rigid control ofchildren’s activities—which would be very influential throughout the rest of the century.Montessori was a doctor who, after graduating from medical school in Rome, took a positionat a psychiatric clinic and became interested in helping retarded children. Her pedagogicalmentor became Edouard Seguin, a French physician who worked with retarded childrenand who promoted the idea that having the children work with concrete objects helpedtheir physical and mental development. Montessori opened her first Casa dei Bambini (Montessori school) in Rome in 1907. Shecreated a classroom climate in which her belief that a child’s “individual liberty” would be

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The Turning of the Tides : c. 1913 9violated “if two children want the same material” and are not “left to settle the problem forthemselves” or by forcibly removing a misbehaving child from a group. Montessori, muchlike Rudolph Steiner of Germany, taught that each child is already a perfectly developedadult human being and that through her educational process “the incarnating child” canfind his own place in the cosmos. It should be noted that at one time Benito Mussolini waspresident of the Montessori Society of Italy. The Montessori Method was published in 1912 and much of Montessori’s work wasprinted by the Theosophical Publishing House. Montessori once lived with the Theosophistsin India and earned the praise of Mahatma Gandhi with her “Cosmic Education” which waspopular with Hindus and Theosophists worldwide. Elizabeth Clare Prophet, the cultic headof the Church Universal and Triumphant, founded a group called Montessori International,and Robert Muller, the celebrated author of the New Age World Core Curriculum, in a CostaRica speech claimed that the Montessori Method was one of the educational programs whichwould greatly benefit global children for the New Age. In her Education for a New World Montessori wrote that “The world was not createdfor us to enjoy, but we are created to evolve the cosmos.” In an issue of the North AmericanMontessori Teachers Association Journal one finds the following revealing comment: Maria Montessori, along with many other enlightened thinkers of our time, foresaw nothing less than the emergence of a new human culture. This new culture, a global, planetized humanity, would be based on a new consciousness of the unity and interdependence of all being, the interconnectedness of all forms of energy and matter. It is a culture of the present paradigm shift, by which we are beginning to align ourselves to educate the human potential for conscious cooperation with the evolution of life on the planet.1 1913JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR.’S DIRECTOR OF CHARITY FOR THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION, FrederickT. Gates, set up the Southern Education Board (SEB), which was later incorporated into theGeneral Education Board (GEB) in 1913, setting in motion “the deliberate dumbing downof America.” The Country School of Tomorrow: Occasional Papers No. 1 (General EducationBoard: New York, 1913) written by Frederick T. Gates contained a section entitled “A Visionof the Remedy” in which he wrote the following: Is there aught of remedy for this neglect of rural life? Let us, at least, yield ourselves to the gratifications of a beautiful dream that there is. In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science.We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.

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10 1914A RESOLUTION WAS PASSED BY THE NORMAL SCHOOL SECTION OF THE NATIONAL EDUCATIONASSOciation at its annual meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota in the year 1914. An excerptfollows: We view with alarm the activity of the Carnegie and Rockefeller Foundations—agencies not in any way responsible to the people—in their efforts to control the policies of our State educational institutions, to fashion after their conception and to standardize our courses of study, and to surround the institutions with conditions which menace true academic freedom and defeat the primary purpose of democracy as heretofore preserved inviolate in our common schools, normal schools, and universities. 1917THE 1917 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE PUBLISHED THE FOLlowingexcerpt from a booklet containing articles by Bishop Warren A. Candler, Chancellor ofEmory University in Atlanta: This board [the General Education Board] was authorized to do almost every conceivable thing which is anywise related to education, from opening a kitchen to establishing a university, and its power to connect itself with the work of every sort of educational plant or enterprise conceivable will be especially observed. This power to project its influence over other corporations is at once the greatest and most dangerous power it has. (p. 2831)THE UNITED STATES ENTERED WORLD WAR I IN 1917. 1918IN THE JANUARY 13, 1918 ISSUE OF NEW YORK WORLD WILLIAM BOYCE THOMPSON, FEDeralReserve Bank director and founding member of the Council on Foreign Relations, statedthat Russia is pointing the way to great and sweeping world changes. It is not in Russia alone that the old order is passing. There is a lot of the old order in America, and that is going, too.... I’m glad it is so. When I sat and watched those democratic conclaves in Russia, I felt I would welcome a similar scene in the United States.[Ed. Note: M. Maxine Tremaine of Massachusetts, recognized for her careful research relatedto international affairs, made the following statements regarding Willian Boyce Thompsonbefore the National Convention of Women for Constitutional Government in a July 1983speech entitled “Russia Is the Model Country of International Bankers and IndustrialistsAdministered by the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland”: “William Boyce

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The Turning of the Tides : c. 1919 11Thompson personally contributed $1 million to the Russian Revolution. He also arranged forthe transfer of money from the United States to (the Communist revolutionaries).”]CARNEGIE AND ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATIONS PLANNED THE DEMISE OF TRADITIONAL ACADEMICeducation in 1918. Rockefeller’s focus would be national education; Carnegie would bein charge of international education. 1919THE INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION (IIE) WAS FOUNDED IN 1919 THROUGH A grantfrom the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The Institute’s purpose was to operatea student exchange program. This process of “exchanges” grew in concept and practice withthe IIE administering visitor exchange programs for the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) in the1990s. The U.S.-Soviet Education Agreements were negotiated by the Carnegie Endowment’sparent organization, the Carnegie Corporation, fostering exchanges of curriculum, pedagogyand materials as well as students.THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION ASSOCIATION (P.E.A.) WAS FOUNDED IN 1919 AND ORGAnized byJohn Dewey, even though he would not become a member in its early years. P.E.A.’s goalsand aims were projected for the last half of this century at a board meeting held November15–17, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois. Attendees included: Harold Rugg, Marion Carswell, ArthurGould, Theodore Brameld, Prudence Bosterick, and Carson Ryan. Speaking of their plans forthe period following World War II, the board published a statement in its journal ProgressiveEducation (December 1943, Vol. XX, No. 8) which included the following excerpt: This is a global war, and the peace now in the making will determine what our national life will be for the next century. It will demonstrate the degree of our national morality. We are writing now the credo by which our children must live.… Your Board unanimously proposes a broadening of the interests and program of this Association to include the communities in which our children live. To this end, they propose additions to the governing body to include representatives of welfare services, health, industry, labor and the professions. In short, a cross-section body to give scope to our program.… Yes, something happened around a table in Chicago. An organization which might have become mellowed with the years to futility, in three short days again drew a blueprint for children of the world.[Ed. Note: For what “our national life will be for the rest of this century” and perhaps on intothe next, see the 1946 Mongomery County Blueprint and 1999 Gwinnett Daily entries.]

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12 1921IN 1921 THE LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY CHANGED ITS NAME FROM THE INTERCOLlegiateSocialist Society (ISS) and stated its purpose as: “Education for a new social order based onproduction and not for profit” (“A Chronology of Education,” Dorothy Dawson, 1978).HAROLD RUGG, WRITER OF SOCIAL STUDIES TEXTBOOK SERIES ENTITLED THE FRONTIER Thinkerswhich was published by the Progressive Education Association, in 1921 became presidentof the National Association of Directors of Education Research which would later becomeknown as the American Educational Research Association.THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1921 THROUGH THE EFFORTS OF Col.Edwin Mandell House, confidant extraordinaire to President Woodrow Wilson and aboutwhom Wilson said, “Mr. House is my second personality… His thoughts and mine are one.”House was the initiator of the effort to establish this American branch of the English RoyalInstitute of International Affairs. Prior to 1921, House’s group, “the Inquiry,” called the CFRthe “Institute of International Affairs.” In 1912 House had authored Philip Dru: Administratorwhich promoted “socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx” about which book Wilson’s Secretaryof the Interior Franklin Lane wrote to a personal friend: “All that book has said should be,comes about. The President comes to Philip Dru in the end.” Walter Lippmann, member of the Fabian Society and Intercollegiate Socialist Society, wasa founding member of the CFR. Whitney Shepardson was a director of the CFR from 1921 until1966. Shepardson had been an assistant to Col. House in the 1918 peace conference followingWorld War I and served as secretary of the League of Nations committee. Shepardson laterbecame a director of the Carnegie Corporation British and Colonies fund. Other early CFRmembers included: Charles E. (Chip) Bohlen, first secretary to the American embassy inMoscow during World War II and President Franklin Roosevelt’s interpreter for his meetingwith Josef Stalin at the Teheran conference; Frank Aydelotte, a trustee of the CarnegieFoundation, president of Swarthmore College, American secretary to the (Cecil) RhodesTrustees (of the Rhodes Scholarship Fund), and director of the Institute for Advanced Studyat Princeton; Secretary of War Henry Stimson, who initiated George Bush into “Skull andBones” and whose special consultant Bernadotte Schmitt had also been a special advisorto Alger Hiss when he had served as secretary-general of the United Nations Conferenceon International Organization in San Francisco in 1945; and William Paley, founder of theColumbia Broadcasting System (CBS) whose chief advisor was Edward Bernays, SigmundFreud’s nephew who wrote Propaganda, in which Bernays reveals: Those who manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country…. It remains a fact in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by this relatively small number of persons…. As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented.